” For the first time in more than two decades, hundreds gathered with journalists outside one of China’s most influential papers on Monday, staging a strike to protest the Communist Party’s censorship of press freedom.

Its reputation for bold reporting, and its weekly readership of more than 1.6 million, Southern Weekend, which is sometimes called Southern Weekly, based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, is one of the most influential media outlets in the country.

This public hunger for a media free from censorship, one that is allowed to challenge corruption and the wrongdoings of private and state enterprise, is the reason editorial staff at the Southern Weekenddecided to stage a strike against government censorship. “